Classroom Progress 2012

I am not quite ready for the big reveal yet, but I do have quite a few pictures of the progress I am making in my classroom!

Just so you know I have no control over the color of the classroom walls, cabinets, or counter tops.  My biggest hurdle is tying in the existing color scheme with my new vision of how I want it to feel.   Baby poo yellow, motley maroon, and nauseated green would not be my first choice.

New front of room and word wall.  Alphabet and word wall letters by Katie from Queen of The First Grade Jungle  Katie is So WONDERFUL and she has many different sets/colors with even more than you see here. 

 This is a close up of one side of the word wall.  I put that black credenza thingy together myself! I am planning to recover the little ottoman stool in gray chevron.  Have the fabric just haven't gotten to that yet.

 

Here's a different angle.  I want to show you my new class rug!  It was a STEAL! 

 I am SO overly excited about it.    Is it big enough for 24 first graders?  Not sure.  

But is it cute enough for 24 first graders?  Oh yes!

 Here's my daily 5 board.  I am not going to have these anchor charts up until we have gone through the process of making them in class, but I wanted to see how it was going to look once they were up.

 My pixy sticks arrived and I finished off that project.  Here's a few links of where you can see more on birthday balloons.

Making the Birthday Balloons

 This is not a finished picture, but it will house my working with words materials for each week.  The signs will read, working with words...(they are not right in the picture)  A girl can change her mind!!! 

 Here's another angle.  I will also have some writing materials here, but more to come on my Author's At Work area...{Remember the signs will say Working With Words}

 Next up...Science center!  I always start with my Discovery Bottles.  Talk about getting kids excited about the Science Center!  More on Discovery Bottles.

 Here are my empty math tubs.  Our first experience will be exploration, so these will be full of manipulatives for each group to practice and play with while learning my math tub expectations.  I plan to go in depth on how I set up math tubs soon after school starts since I have had a lot of questions about it!

 This is a picture of that entire back counter area.  I am still dealing with lamp choice and how to hide cords once I choose the right lamps.  For now it is just showing you the soft light...Please ignore the towering lamps and white cordage all over.

 My class library area.  I am cropping this one big time.  I am not ready for the full reveal here, but again picture decorative pillows, a cute chevron fabric covered ottoman, and matching curtains to pull everything together.  It took me FOR.EV.A. to get my books all in their bins with their matching labels...But now that it is done I want to jump for joy when I look at this library!

 Here's a little closer view of the library.  In each tub I still have the labels waiting to be stuck on each book.  They match the book bin label so every book will have a picture and a word showing where it goes. More on Classroom Library Labels.

 My mom promised to sit and just label the books for me one day.  Moment of silence for my mom...........<3

 Here's a close view of the book bin and labels

ok mostly I just wanted you to see my favorite lamp.  

 My teacher area is coming along nicely.  My friend  Wersty borrowed my googly eyes drawer from my teacher toolbox, but other than that....

 This is m rocker that used to be chippy and green.  I gave it a fresh new life with spray paint.  When it is on the new gray rug it makes me squeal with happiness.  :) 

My big book tub used to be blue and the pointer tub was red with polka dots.  I spray painted both.

 My wonderful mom has been plugging away at my cupboards for me.  I can't show you the before picture due to embarrassment, but check out my math manipulatives now!  There's even room to grow baby!

 closer view

 Here is my art cupboard...it was ridiculous.  Now it is SO organized.  I even added labels to each tub...but forgot to take a picture of that.

 Genius boy checked the mountain of headphones out for me so we could get rid of all the broken ones!

 Well there's still 4,768,931 more projects to complete in this room but it's bliss to me!

More to come.....